The Loon

by Michaelbrent Collings

  His parents had been upset, especially his father. They had raged and railed and carried on about the left tackle, about the failure of Darryl's teammates, about the game of football itself.

  Never about Darryl's knees. Never about Darryl. His family loved him, he knew, unconditionally and without reservation. But they had wanted him to leave, to get out, to escape the icy clutches of the mountains they lived in – to hide from the unyielding stare of the Big Sky State.

  Darryl had calmed them. And in so doing, he had discovered that he was calm himself. That he didn't mind the prospect of Montana. That he was even happy to find out he would be staying for a while.

  Perhaps even forever.

  Or until he died. Which since Darryl had every intention of living forever promised to be the same thing.

  Not that he loved the raging storm outside, any more than he would have loved a sudden and severe case of appendicitis or pneumonia. But he didn't hate it. It was part of Montana. It simply was, and Mitchell recognized the futility of hating something that was, ultimately, part of his own makeup as much as it was a part of Montana's ever-changing sky. The storm was not to be hated, simply accepted. And perhaps used as an excuse to find a warm somebody to curl up with.

  That thought led inexorably to Sandy.

  It wasn't that she was the prettiest person Darryl knew – an ex football star in a small town like Stonetree had his pick of pretty girls. But Darryl wasn't looking for mere outward appearances. His parents had raised him differently than that. He wanted something more, something different.

  Something...good.

  And then Sandy appeared, showing up for her first day at The Loon like a puppy right out of the pet store: anxious to please, quick to learn, fast to smile. The smile alone was a reason to like her, if for no other reason than because it was a smile utterly bereft of the usual traces of jadedness or irony that so typified many people who worked in the corrections industry. Jorge was a good example of that. A good guard, a good man, a good person, but even he had a sarcastic streak a mile long that Darryl knew operated primarily to keep the Hispanic guard safe within a protective shell of humor

  Sandy had no such protections. She was a candle to the world, and that made her both vulnerable and terribly attractive.

  Darryl felt himself drift away from attending to the monitors in the "reception room" of The Loon. Normally he had no trouble paying attention while on monitor duty. The monitors made him feel a bit like God. Not in the strange, even creepy way that he suspected Dr. Crane felt like God. But in the simple, all-seeing way that he imagined God felt. Click, and he could see the bathrooms. Click, he could see the kitchen. Click, the prison. Click, outside. Almost anywhere in The Loon, and he could be there.

  But not today. Not with the storm raging and making outside visibility an ever-greater fiction. And not while thinking of Sandy. Luckily, Leann was also on monitor duty, and Darryl trusted the harsh but effective older woman to cover him during any momentary lapse of watchfulness. He rarely allowed himself to daydream on watch at The Loon – it was just too good a way to get hurt or killed – but he was also human, and once in a while the siren effects of Sandy's smile drew his attention even when she wasn't around.

  That was why it was such a surprise when one of the two doors behind him – the door leading to the staff facility and not, thankfully, the one leading to Dr. Crane's office and living quarters – suddenly clicked and then slammed open, followed immediately by Paul and the new kid...Hales his name was. Jackson Hales.

  Darryl glanced at Leann and saw the older woman jump. Apparently she had been caught unawares by Paul's sudden entrance too, which made him feel a bit better about his indulgent lack of attention.

  "Whassup, Paul?" he asked.

  "Who's coming in?" asked Paul brusquely.

  Darryl glanced at Leann, who cocked an eyebrow. A small move, but it nonetheless eloquently communicated "How the hell should I know?" to Darryl as effectively as a soliloquy.

  "What are you talking about?" she said, glancing at the monitors, which was a joke because the storm had gotten bad enough that outside visibility was just short of nil.

  "No one that I know," said Darryl at the same time.

  Then, as though God were punishing him for thinking he was all-seeing in even a limited way, Darryl heard a buzz on the intercom, followed by Jeff's voice: "It's Jeff. Coming in, so don't trank us."

  "Us?" said Paul into the intercom.

  "We got visitors," said Jeff.

  Darryl lifted an eyebrow himself, but immediately pressed a button. The front door buzzed open, and the last thing he would have expected walked in.

  UNCERTAINTY

  Paul had seen pictures of her, so he knew who one of them was. But he had never seen Jorge's sister up close, certainly not up close with various bruises and frozen blood on her face. At first he thought the blood must have been caused by an on-the-road accident of some sort, then he saw more clearly that it was the result of some altercation. He had done enough time helping battered women to recognize the signs of domestic violence.

  Then he saw under the blood and bruises, under the outside of her, and nearly gasped.

  The pictures Jorge displayed so proudly to those who would listen – "Mi hermanita," he would say, which Paul knew meant "My little sister" – had not done Rachel de los Santos justice. She was beautiful. No, not just beautiful, stunning. And Paul was, indeed, stunned. He felt himself gaping like a halibut, felt his mouth move with no sound coming out. He knew he must look like a fool, but for a wonderful moment he didn't care. Beauty palpably radiated from her gaze, the beauty of someone who has fought for years and years to live in an ugly world, even though she herself was an angel.

  Then Rachel de los Santos reached down into her coat, and this time Paul really did gasp, for when she opened it he saw another pair of feet, and a little girl – again, someone Paul had seen in Jorge's photos; this one was his niece, Becky – stepped forward. Like her mother, she bore fresh bruises and even a trace of blood on her face, as well as a thin beauty that Paul sensed might shatter like fine chinaware if pressed too hard.

  I won't press you, he thought, I'll protect you.

  He had a moment to wonder where that thought had come from, his thoughts turning bleakly to Sammy, when Jeff, sounding almost embarrassed, spoke. "They were at the outer gate," he said, and he sounded more like a kid who had just gotten caught with his fingers in the sugar than like a grown man who had clearly just saved someone's life. Paul glanced at one of the readouts on the monitor board, and saw the temperature outside was ten below zero and falling fast. The two girls wouldn't have lasted long out there.

  But where had they come from? Paul wondered.

  Apparently Leann was having the same thoughts, because she responded to Jeff with a harsh "They what?" and Darryl followed up with "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what were you ladies doing out there in this kind of weather?"

  Neither visitor spoke, and it didn't take a psychiatrist to tell that the bruising was fresh. Paul spoke gently to the mother. "Rachel, right? Rachel...Taylor," he finally said, remembering what Jorge had said his sister's married name was.

  A flash of anger sparked in the woman's eyes, but she didn't lash out, merely murmured, "It's de los Santos, not Taylor."

  Paul understood. Again, it didn't take a medical degree to see what had happened, and while part of him was glad that the two women had escaped an obviously abusive relationship, another part of him groaned. Not today, he thought. Not with the storm, and with Steiger acting so unusual, and Dr. Crane playing Houdini and disappearing, and...

  He could have gone on that way for quite some while, but told himself to shut up.

  Then he turned to Leann and said, "Get on the horn and find Jorge." Leann nodded and immediately picked up a phone. Paul leaned down to Becky. He knew who she was, but said, "And what's your name?" He looked at her lip, which was puffy as though she had smashed into something. Probably her father's fist. "What ha
ppened?" he asked. "Did you trip out there? Fall and hurt yourself?" He smiled, trying to jolly her into responsiveness.

  It didn't work. She merely turned and buried her face in her mother's coat.

  "Her name's Becky," said Rachel.

  Paul smiled at the girl, hoping she would turn and see him. "Becky," he said. "Pretty name for a pretty girl." But it was no use; the little girl did not turn back to him.

  Behind him, Leann hung up. "Jorge's in the prison area and can't leave Marty alone back there." Paul felt Leann, Jeff, Darryl, and even Hales looking at him expectantly. What was he going to do with these uninvited and potentially dangerous guests? Not that they would intentionally harm anyone, Paul could see instantly. But loose cogs were not good in a machine as tightly wound as The Loon.

  "Jacky," he said after a moment, not realizing that he had slipped into the familiar form of Hales' name, "you ready for your first assignment?"

  "Ready and waiting."

  "Would you please escort Rachel and Becky back to my office and have them wait for me there?"

  "Sure," said Jacky. He held out his hand to Becky, trying to coax the little girl into taking it. "Come on, cutey."

  Paul was unprepared for the violence of Rachel's response. The mother slapped Jacky's hand away from her daughter, nearly screaming, "Don't touch my daughter!" She pulled Becky even closer to her, and as she did her coat slipped down in the back and Paul glimpsed several long, dark bruises that ran down her neck and shoulders.

  He felt rather than saw Darryl and Leann both stiffen behind him, and could tell they were feeling the same mix of emotions he had felt: happiness that the woman and her child had made it here and were not dead in some white trash home somewhere, anger at a man that would stoop so low...and nervousness at the new and highly uncertain element that had just been introduced at The Loon.

  ASSIGNMENT

  Jacky came this close to wetting his pants when the woman yelled, "Don't touch my daughter!" He was glad he hadn't, since he suspected spontaneous urination would not endear him to anyone on staff at The Loon – but at the same time he had to wonder again what more could go on that would be out of the ordinary. He knew his presence here was unplanned and, he sensed, unwelcome, and now this woman and her child were here.

  At the same time, he also felt pride that he had been given his first assignment. He knew it amounted to little more than a babysitting gig, and that Dr. Wiseman was probably giving him the job as much to keep Jacky out of everyone's hair as anything else, but he still couldn't help but feel flushed with glee as he used his very own card and his very own code to buzz through the door to the staff area, then took Rachel and her daughter, Becky, up the clanking steps to the second floor.

  Another buzz and swipe when they got to Dr. Wiseman's office, and Jacky bowed semi-gallantly to the woman and motioned them through. Even with her bruises – and Jacky wished he could be alone in the room with the guy who had done that to her – the woman was a looker. Long legs, curvy but not too curvy, she was just the way Jacky liked them. Too bad she was older, and had a kid, and probably a husband, and...

  Whoa, he thought. That's one "too bad" too many, and just about enough to stop me dead.

  He followed them through the door, pulling out a chair for Rachel and another for Becky. The little girl was wearing a bright backpack, and Jacky was shocked to see what looked like a pair of real road flares sticking out of the pack.

  Becky seemed to notice his gaze, because she suddenly shifted her pack and shoved everything deeper inside, then zipped it up solemnly. The words "Emergency Pack" were stenciled in childish scrawl across the pack, and Jacky wondered what kind of shitty life this kid had led to make her have something like that all done up and ready just in case the guy who had obviously been beating her finally snapped.

  Jacky gulped, thinking of the abusive fathers he had met. None of them were anything more than pint-sized psychos who would probably fit in just fine at The Loon. That led inexorably to thinking about the kind of people who were here: Bloodhound, so vicious even after heavy doping. The strangely silent inmates. Steiger, so cheerful and yet – if Dr. Wiseman was to be believed – the deadliest thing that the world had seen since smallpox.

  He gulped again. Come to think of it, if the girl's father was anything like The Loon's inmates, maybe he didn't want to be alone with the man after all.

  LOCATIONS

  Jeff Radstone flushed hot in spite of the cold when Paul turned to him and said, "What the hell were you thinking, Jeff? We're not a babysitting service."

  Jeff didn't like being pushed around: it was part of why he was a guard, so he could be the one pushing. And yet here he was, backed into the wall by Paul's sudden outburst. He knew that Paul was just worried about the storm and about the woman and her kid. He didn't know the details, but rumor had it that Paul had lost his own son somehow. So Jeff imagined it would be tough for Paul to see Becky, such a beautiful little girl, so terribly bruised and beaten. And since the girl's father wasn't here for Paul to lash out at, apparently Jeff was a handy substitute.

  Christ, he thought, I should be a goddam shrink myself.

  Out loud, he responded to Paul's verbal onslaught with a loud, "What the hell was I supposed to do? It's cold enough out there to freeze a turd before it's half out your ass."

  Paul's lip curled in clear disgust at the image, but Darryl came to Jeff's rescue with a loud guffaw that did wonders for defusing the tension in the air. "That's disgusting, Jeffrey," said Leann.

  Jeff did a little mini-bow to the older woman. "Thank you, milady," he said. Then turned to Paul and, seeing that the doctor had himself back under control, he said in a quieter voice, "Was I supposed to just leave them out there?"

  Paul pinched the bridge of his nose like he was nursing the mother of all migraines and sighed. "No. Of course not. You did good, Jeff. Sorry I yelled, just...forget it. Anyone else on the wall with you when they came in?"

  "Sandy," said Jeff.

  "Have her lock the outer door manually and bring her in. If it's that cold," he said with a half-smile, "we can't risk losing her to a turd-sicle."

  This time it was Jeff's turn to guffaw. Paul was an okay guy. A little high-strung, but Jeff supposed that anyone in charge of this particular loony bin would have to be.

  He saw Paul glance at the monitors. The outside ones showed – literally – only snow. The doctor continued, "Looks like you can't see three feet in front of you out there, anyway" Then Paul asked Darryl, "Where's everyone else at?"

  The football player checked his monitors. "Marty and Jorge are still on inmate patrol in the prison, Sandy's outside but we'll get her in, we're in here, the new guy's upstairs with our visitors." Darryl clicked rapidly through the monitors' viewpoints until he located the rest of the crew. "Donald, Vincent, Mitchell, Wade, and Hip-Hop are all working on getting dinner ready for the inmates in the downstairs kitchen."

  Paul pinched his nose again. "I forgot about dinner. Who's on for delivery tonight?"

  "Wade and Hip-Hop were scheduled to do it, but..." Darryl paused. "That's weird."

  "What?" said Paul, and Jeff could hear the tension creeping back into the doctor's voice.

  "No big deal, Paul," said Darryl reassuringly. "Just looks like Hip-Hop changed the roster to have Jacky go with him to feed the inmates instead of Wade." The big man shrugged. "Probably wanted to show him the procedure."

  "When's dinner?" asked Paul.

  "About an hour," answered Leann.

  "Okay," said Paul. "Call me if anything else happens. Tell everyone not on active duty to get plenty of sleep tonight. No slumber parties: we'll all need to stay alert while this storm's on. I'm going up to talk to our new guests." He glanced at Jeff once more. "Sorry again, Jeff. The storm's driving me nuts faster than the inmates. You did good bringing them in." Then the doctor snapped his fingers as a new thought apparently came to him.

  "Where's God?" he asked.

  "I can't see him on the monitors, so he
's probably in his office," said Darryl.

  "I wonder if he's even noticed the storm," said Paul.

  EYES

  It walks.

  Change.

  Then it slithers.

  Change.

  Then it crawls.

  Change.

  Then it flops like a fish-thing.

  Change.

  Change.

  Change....

  Something is wrong.

  It is shifting more and more. And it is already hungry again. In pain again. Its captor sits in the light and watches it writhe in pain and now its captor is laughing and it wants to kill the thing that has kept him prisoner, to kill it and kill it forever.

  It writes in its own acid-drool on the floor. "KiL u fOReVer." Then wipes the drool-sketch out with more acidic secretions.

  Its captor is not laughing now. It looks angry.

  And with anger comes the light and the burning.

  REPLACEMENT

  Dr. Crane stood before his creation and watched it shift. Something was different now, the thing was unstable, moving faster and faster from form to form, almost as though it was losing control of itself.

  That was not entirely unexpected. Indeed, it was the reason – one of the reasons – that Crane had moved the timetable up on this iteration of his experiment.

  He looked at his watch. Only a few more hours and Hip-Hop and Wade would set the plan in motion. Steiger would "get out," only to be caught again unbeknownst to most of the staff and to all of the outside world. The Loon was an excellent place to hide the inmates that "escaped": no one expected to find them in a hidden lab in the basement of the very facility from which they had just they appeared to escape.